James Comey reveals concerns about Trump in devastating account to Congress

The fired FBI chief, James Comey, has publicly revealed how Donald Trump put pressure on him to shut down an investigation into a senior adviser’s links to Russia.Trump asked Comey to drop his investigation into the former national security adviser Gen Michael Flynn, Comey’s first written account of his interactions says.“I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” the president is alleged to have told Comey in the White House in February. “He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”Comey, subsequently dismissed by Trump, writes that he understood the president to be asking him to drop the investigation into Flynn, an intervention he found “very concerning”.Comey’s statement for the record was released on Wednesday ahead of his eagerly awaited appearance before the Senate intelligence committee on Capitol Hill on Thursday. Over seven pages, he provides intriguing detail about his private conversations with Trump, including a 30 March phone call in which Trump asked what Comey could do to “lift the cloud” of the Russia investigation.The document appears certain to become the focus of an investigation into whether Trump is guilty of obstruction of justice, an offence for which he could be impeached.http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/07/james-comey-trump-congress-statement

President Donald Trump could be weighing the termination of special counsel Robert Mueller from his oversight of the federal Russia investigation, Christopher Ruddy, CEO of the conservative Newsmax Media and a friend of President Trump, told PBS NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff on Monday.

“I think he’s considering perhaps terminating the special counsel. I think he’s weighing that option,” Ruddy said when asked by Woodruff whether the president was prepared to let the special counsel pursue the Russia investigation. “I think it’s pretty clear by what one of his lawyers said on television recently.”

“I personally think it would be a very significant mistake,” Ruddy added.

The comments come the day before Attorney General Jeff Sessions is set to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee, the same panel before which former FBI director James Comey appeared last week.

In his testimony June 8, Comey detailed his meetings with Trump before he was fired May 9, including conversations in which the president referred to the Russia investigations as a cloud over his presidency. Comey also detailed conversations in which he said the president told him he hoped the director could “let go” of investigations into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s contacts with Russia.

Ruddy told Woodruff that Trump was optimistic after the Comey hearing and “generally felt he had won a victory.”

“Director Comey’s testimony once again proved that there was no obstruction” of the Russia investigations, Ruddy said, adding the president and his top aides felt that some people in Washington were trying to undermine Trump’s agenda by focusing on the investigations.

Ruddy also said Mueller was under consideration for the director of the FBI before he was appointed special counsel, as reported earlier by NPR.

“The president did talk with him in the days before he was named special counsel. I think there’s a conflict there,” Ruddy said.

“There’s some real conflicts,” Ruddy continued. “He comes from a law firm that represents members of the Trump family. He interviewed the day before, a few days before, he was appointed special counsel, with the president, who was looking at him potentially to become the next FBI Director. That hasn’t been published, but it’s true. And I think it would be strange that he would have a confidential conversation and then a few days later become the prosecutor of the person he may be investigating.”

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday he and Russia's president had discussed forming a cyber security unit, an idea harshly criticized by Republicans who said Moscow could not be trusted after its alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.

Tweeting after his first meeting with President Vladimir Putin on Friday, Trump said now was the time to work constructively with Moscow, pointing to a ceasefire deal in southwest Syria that came into effect on Sunday.

"Putin & I discussed forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, & many other negative things, will be guarded and safe," he said following their talks at a summit of the Group of 20 nations in Hamburg, Germany.

Three Republican senators - Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, John McCain of Arizona and Marco Rubio of Florida - blasted the idea.

"It's not the dumbest idea I have ever heard but it's pretty close," Graham told NBC's "Meet the Press" program, saying that Trump's apparent willingness to "forgive and forget" stiffened his resolve to pass legislation imposing sanctions on Russia.

"There has been no penalty," McCain, who chairs the Senate armed services committee, told CBS' "Face the Nation" program according to a CBS transcript. "Vladimir Putin ... got away with literally trying to change the outcome ... of our election."

"Yes, it's time to move forward. But there has to be a price to pay," he added.

Rubio, on Twitter, said: "Partnering with Putin on a 'Cyber Security Unit' is akin to partnering with (Syrian President Bashar al) Assad on a 'Chemical Weapons Unit'."

Trump argued for rapprochement with Moscow in his campaign but has been unable to deliver because his administration has been dogged by investigations into the allegations of Russian interference in the election and ties with his campaign.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating the matter, including whether there may have been any collusion on the part of Trump campaign officials, as are congressional committees including both the House and Senate intelligence panels.

Those probes are focused almost exclusively on Moscow’s actions, lawmakers and intelligence officials say, and no evidence has surfaced publicly implicating other countries despite Trump's suggestion that others could have been involved.

Moscow has denied any interference, and Trump says his campaign did not collude with Russia.

Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told CNN's "State of the Union" program Russia could not be a credible partner in a cyber security unit.

"If that’s our best election defense, we might as well just mail our ballot boxes to Moscow," Schiff added.

Separately, U.S. government officials said that a recent hack into business systems of U.S. nuclear power and other energy companies was carried out by Russian government hackers, the Washington Post reported on Saturday.

Nobody did including McCain himself knew something was wrong until this week. There were signs that he was somewhat mentally impaired though during the Comey hearing however when he seem confused and disoriented during his questioning of Comey. That said, it's almost certain McCain doesn't have a lot of time left on the clock - glioblastoma brain cancer is one of the brutally worst, most aggressive forms of cancer. I think it's the same thing that killed Ted Kennedy. It's what my mom died from, she was diagnosed, had brain surgery to remove the tumor, it came back within weeks, they gave her six months and she died almost six months to the day after the diagnosis.

As crazy as he has been in the past decade, I remember a time when he was pretty well liked by both sides. He stood a chance to be the president maybe before Bush W. No chance his last run. Especially after Palin. Sad news. Seems like a good dude, even if he tows the party line a little too much these days. 5 years a POW!? Respect. Not sure any of us would make it. Sad news.

I just found out today that since Wednesday devices bigger than a smartphone (laptops, tablets) will be checked at the airport if you are traveling from Mexico to the US. People are asked now to arrive 4 hours before their flight I am never lucky with airport security, so pretty psyched I didn't have to go through that

POLITICS 08/03/2017 10:47 am ETThe Internet Is Having A Dairy Good Time With Trump’s ‘Local Milk People’The president used the phrase on a call with the Australian prime minister.By Jenna Amatulli

If President Donald Trump honors a refugee resettlement agreement with Australia, he’s pretty sure the newcomers “are not going to be wonderful people who go on to work for the local milk people.”

That’s what the president told Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in January, according to reproductions of transcripts published by the Washington Post Thursday morning.

Turnbull had a hard time getting Trump to understand the full parameters surrounding the refugee resettlement deal, which the Obama administration approved. It stipulates that Australia “would transfer up to 1,250 refugees currently held in offshore detention centers on the Pacific Island nation of Nauru and Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island to the United States,” with many of these refugees coming from Iran, according to CNN.

During his conversation with the Australian leader, Trump repeatedly insisted that he heard the number was far higher.

Trump then proceeded to say that he hates “taking these people,” in reference to the refugees.

“I guarantee you they are bad. That is why they are in prison right now,” he said. “They are not going to be wonderful people who go on to work for the local milk people.”

But who are these “local milk people”? Trump was likely referencing the many refugees who take jobs in dairy farms. But a lot of Twitter users had their own ideas about the wording and what it meant.

...

The Washington Post also published a reproduced transcript of Trump’s call with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. In it, the president remarks that Nieto speaks “beautifully,” adding that he does not think he “can speak that beautifully.”

POLITICS 08/03/2017 10:47 am ETThe Internet Is Having A Dairy Good Time With Trump’s ‘Local Milk People’The president used the phrase on a call with the Australian prime minister.By Jenna Amatulli

If President Donald Trump honors a refugee resettlement agreement with Australia, he’s pretty sure the newcomers “are not going to be wonderful people who go on to work for the local milk people.”

That’s what the president told Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in January, according to reproductions of transcripts published by the Washington Post Thursday morning.

Turnbull had a hard time getting Trump to understand the full parameters surrounding the refugee resettlement deal, which the Obama administration approved. It stipulates that Australia “would transfer up to 1,250 refugees currently held in offshore detention centers on the Pacific Island nation of Nauru and Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island to the United States,” with many of these refugees coming from Iran, according to CNN.

During his conversation with the Australian leader, Trump repeatedly insisted that he heard the number was far higher.

Trump then proceeded to say that he hates “taking these people,” in reference to the refugees.

“I guarantee you they are bad. That is why they are in prison right now,” he said. “They are not going to be wonderful people who go on to work for the local milk people.”

But who are these “local milk people”? Trump was likely referencing the many refugees who take jobs in dairy farms. But a lot of Twitter users had their own ideas about the wording and what it meant.

...

The Washington Post also published a reproduced transcript of Trump’s call with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. In it, the president remarks that Nieto speaks “beautifully,” adding that he does not think he “can speak that beautifully.”

We’ll let the local milk people be the judge of that.

This seems bizarre, but there was some speculation a while ago that Trump's way of speaking is caused by the early stages of dementia or Alzheimer's. He seems to have difficulty using specific words/names, often defaulting to vague descriptions like 'thing', 'guy', 'people'. He also seems to lose coherence in the middle of sentences in a way that may not be intentional. I think there was an article comparing the way he speaks now with the way he spoke 20+ years ago, and there appear to be some serious changes.

If he does have a neurological issue, like Reagan, at least it would help humanize him (or at least make more sense of the shit he says).

"My father . . . floundered his way through his responses, fumbling with notes, uncharacteristically lost for words," the president's son Ron Reagan Jr., said of a 1984 debate with Walter Mondale. "He looked tired, bewildered."

Amazon is selling toilet paper with President Trump’s tweets printed on it.

A single roll of the two-ply paper goes for $11.99 on Amazon, slightly less than the $12.95 that it costs for a role of toilet paper with pictures of Trump’s face.

Some of the tweets included on the paper highlight controversial statements that Trump has made that seem ironic or funny given events that have happened since he has taken office.

“Do you think Putin will be going to The Miss Universe Pageant in November in Moscow — if so, will he become my new best friend?” reads one tweet from 2013.

“The electoral college is a disaster for democracy,” according to one tweet from 2012.

“Are you allowed to impeach a president for gross incompetence?” Trump tweeted in 2014.

Recently, Amazon has joined the subjects of Trump's Twitter ire. He has slammed CEO Jeff Bezos over his ownership of The Washington Post, which the president calls "fakes news," and accused Amazon itself of having a "no-tax monopoly" on internet sales.

"Putin goes out and lies in your face in order to say, ‘Facts don’t exist, which means you can’t argue with me,’ At the heart of this mind-set is the idea that there is no such thing as objective truth or even facts, because everything is spun or disguised to reflect advantageously on one group or another. “The whole idea of values has been thoroughly debased [in Russia], to the extent that if you talk about Western values you’ll just get a laugh,” says Ben Nimmo, a research fellow at the Atlantic Council. This environment of toxic cynicism allows Putin’s word to be as good as anyone else’s, because according to Moscow’s worldview everyone, including and especially westerners, is a self-righteous hypocrite and a liar. “There is definitely the approach by the Kremlin-funded media that everybody is equally bad; therefore there is no such thing as bad anymore,” Nimmo says. This dark internal logic allows for the Kremlin propaganda machine’s single greatest achievement: to rub out all distinctions between truth and lies, so that facts, conspiracies, reality, and fabrications are all pulled down into the same indistinguishable muck. “In that unknowability, when you can’t say what’s wrong or right, or truth or not truth, then it becomes all right to invade Ukraine, or to not show your taxes,” Pomerantsev says."